The Secret of Hidden Lake (2006 TV Movie) User Reviews

a bit obvious

[paulapierce · 5/10 · 27 April 2016]

Maggie returns home to hidden lake after learning her father has been severely injured in a hunting accident. She begins to realise it was not accident that caused his injury.

Everyone in the town becomes a suspect and Maggie struggles to find help from anyone to uncover what really happened

I had guessed 'who dunnit' quite early on.

It was an OK movie, but a lot of the characters I disliked!I Can understand why Maggie left when she was old enough!

I felt that it dragged on a bit and then the ending finished quite abruptly, but don't let that put you off, it is worth a watch on a day when there is nothing else on! On a positive note, the acting was believable

Rena Sofer Gave an Outstanding Performance

[whpratt1 · 6/10 · 30 October 2006]

The title of this film captured my interest and there is a scene where a little girl goes out with her dad hunting in the woods near Hidden Lake and he expects his daughter to hit the target immediately. The little girl finds eagle feathers and it is from that point on that the story goes down all kinds of different paths and the little girl becomes a mature woman who leaves Chicago to visit her dad. The little girl is Rena Sofer,(Maggie Dolan),"March",'01 who really is the star of this TV film and sort of carries the film on her back through out almost every scene. The story disappointed me in many ways and it seemed to go on and on like a Merry-go-Round.

Not bad

[Gubby-Allen · 6/10 · 28 December 2007]

Another run of the mill daytime one this, not much to say on it. Plenty of suspense, you're never too sure where the plot is heading (which is a good and bad thing). The core parts of the story you can peg in the first twenty minutes & it takes too long to get to the end. The actress playing Maggie puts in a top performance, though with some clichéd parts to her role (opening the front door at night, picking up the mail without shutting it). The villain Jack (Snr) was underused & the ending a bit of a rush-job with ends left untied. Some odd characters make up the rest of the film,though may be realistic for that part of the world - which incidentallyis something else in the films favour - some awesome scenery & backdrops.

Worth a watch, underrated at 5/10 but fairly predictable & slightly long.

I know where you live!

[sol-kay · 5/10 · 5 February 2008]

(Some Spoilers) A bit overcomplicated drama involving a young woman Maggie Dolan, Nena Sofea,coming back to her hometown Hidden Lake from Chicago to look after her badly injured, from a hunting accident, father the towns former sheriff Frank Dolan, Winston Rekert.

We learned right from the start that Maggie, played by Jodelie Ferland as a young girl, was grabbed from behind while she was out in the woods with her dad by this unseen and militia-like, in his combat fatigues, assailant. Forcing Maggie to tell him her name and address the faceless psycho tells Maggie that if she ever tells anyone what happened to her he'll not only come and get her but her entire family! With this on her mind Maggie when she's old enough takes the first plane out of Hidden Lake to get a job in Chicago as a tenant activist.

With the news of her father hospitalized in critical condition Maggie goes back to Hidden Lake and there all the fears of the past came back to haunt her. It turns out that Mr. Dolan's injuries wren't accidental they were on purpose! It's also very evident that the person who shot Frank Dolan may well have been the same one who threatened Maggie some 20 years ago when she was out in the woods with him!

The movie "The Secret of Hidden Lake" has so many secrets in it that you get lost trying to both follow them as well as figure them out. The big secret is of course what was the reason for Frank Dolan getting gunned down and left for dead at the foot of Buck Mountain. The very same place where Maggie was almost abducted by this mysterious psycho some 20 years ago.

Maggie has her hands full in getting the town's new sheriff Native American Sheriff Tillane, Renae Morriseau, to get the ball rolling in finding her father's assailant. All the clues to Frank Dolan's shooting lead to this construction and real estate company called Larango Inc. It was Frank's opposition to Larango's attempts to bulldoze and strip-mine the town of Hidden Lake and it's surrounding countryside that cost the company millions in profits that may well have lead to his shooting.

We and Maggie are put through the ringer in a number of, what seems like, unrelated subplots to who was behind her father's attempted murder. The final results are a bit confusing in that Frank Dolan seems to come back to life, or out of his coma, to advise Maggie to not only who tried to kill him but what was the reason behind it! These ghost-like, even though Frank Dolan was still and very much alive, appearances on Frank Dolan's part had you totally confused to what was happening in the movie!

The revelation to who's behind all these bizarre happenings make the final few minutes of the film even more confusing! We not only get to find out who the perpetrator is but were given this whole verbal and chronological flashback, with a complete cast of characters thrown in, to what had him do what he did and even more confusing who was manipulating him to do it!

Pretty good mystery drama that sadly gets itself entangled in a number of unnecessary sub-plots like the totally unexplained mysterious video tape, that Maggie found,hidden in a lock-box in the the former Sheriff Dolan's office locker. At the end of the movie we have all the people who were in some way responsible, passively as well as actively,in Frank Dolan's shooting come out of the woodwork, or the woods, to explain to both Maggie and the confused audience watching just what were the reasons behind it! It was as if everyone involved in Frank Dolan's shooting were on trial and trying to explain what they both did, with an explanation, or did not do, by not being at the scene of he crime,in gunning Frank Dolan down!

the un-secret of not-so-hidden-lake

[The_Melancholic_Alcoholic · 2/10 · 7 January 2011]

This has got be one of the most boilerplate, indeed run-of-the-mill movies i have ever seen. This comes close to The Room and Tycus on my personal list of Worst ever. I watched this cos I saw Tideland, Case 39 and the Dead Like Me opener.

But Ferland is severely underused.

Anyways, the story is so predictable, it ain't funny no more. We could see that it was the judge from like a mile away. It isn't that the Native American female sheriff as a villain would have been too un-Politically Correct (okay, frankly, it WOULD have been too un-Politically Correct, even for these toxic Teabagger times), it's not that it could never have been the cute sympathetic ex-boyfriend, who's been burning a candle for Rena/Maggie for TWENTY years, it's not that it could never have been the abused son of that nasty father, it's not EVEN because the Judge Landers character is the only older white guy in the story! Nah, it is because William B. Davis is the X-Files' Cigarette Smoking Man, and HE ALWAYS PLAYS THE CRIMINAL!!! Sigh. Hollywood movies are soooooo predictable .......

The Melancholic Alcoholic.

Blend of Terror and Mystery

[roedyg · 8/10 · 3 January 2007]

This movie blends moderate terror with a first class mystery. Rena Sofer does a masterful job of playing the gutsy Maggie, who by turns metaphorically cavalierly prods rattlesnakes and then retreats in terror. She is an interesting and lovable character. She is not just mindless fodder for mayhem. I found myself shouting directions at the screen for her to take more caution.

The movie reminds me of Semilla's Sense Of Snow, in that you don't know whom you can trust. Every kindly action becomes suspect. The various actors manage to beautifully project simultaneous kindness and possible hidden malice.

It has a complex plot ending worthy of Ruth Rendell.

The movie is realistic. Most of Maggie's sleuthing actions lead nowhere. She has no magical powers of deduction. The villains are people you might find in the newspaper.

To me the movie appeared to be shot in BC Canada, simulating Colorado in the USA. The beautiful forests, and diffused overcast light, are an ever-present backdrop.

Pretty good

[vchimpanzee · 25 January 2010]

At the start of the movie, everything is brown or army green. I'm not sure if with the green it could be referred to as sepia tone.

Maggie and her father Frank have gone hunting on Buck Mountain near Hidden Lake, Colorado. Maggie is not doing too well, so she goes off by herself. A man grabs her and threatens to kill everyone she loves if she says anything.

20 years later, Maggie is working in Chicago, helping people who are having trouble with (for example) their landlords or with immigration. She gets a call that her father has been shot, apparently while hunting, and is in critical condition.

At the hospital, Maggie meets Alice, who raised her after her mother died and served as her father's housekeeper after that. Alice criticizes Maggie for leaving town and says she shouldn't have been so surprised at all the changes.

Frank recently retired after 23 years as sheriff. The Herald newspaper was taken over by Lorango, a developer that has made lots of changes in the process of turning the area into a tourist attraction. Not everyone was pleased with the changes, and Frank sided with the protesters. Now the newspaper wants to hurt his reputation, but Maggie doesn't believe her father would do anything wrong, and neither does his long-time friend Judge Landers. The current sheriff, a woman, also believes in Frank.

Maggie has a number of imaginary conversations with her father where he is in uniform, at home, in her vehicle, and at the hospital. Some of the conversations actually might have taken places several years earlier; for example, Frank wishes his daughter would stay in town because she can still use her knowledge to help people there.

Sam was Maggie's ex-boyfriend, and he now runs the diner. Two characters are named Jack Ford--an abusive father and his mechanic son.

Eventually, the truth comes out.

Most of the leading actors here do a good job, but I found four performances particularly impressive--as Frank, as Alice, as Judge Landers, and as Jack Ford Sr.

It's a pretty good mystery, with occasional violence but nothing too bad.

A good movie worth watching

[shydreamguywantsabboyfriend · 10/10 · 19 January 2019]

2 Corrections to the Synopsis Description of the film . It Mistakenly says the father was Murdered and there was an Autopsy . Neither is correct ., this was an Attempted Murder , but eventually someone does die .